Not at any cost

Peaceniks had a star-studded coming-out party on Tuesday during International Human Rights Day.

Former President Jimmy Carter railed against his nation's threat of military action against Iraq while accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. And protesters, including Hollywood celebrities who only play presidents on screen, staged anti-American protests and press conferences.

We certainly endorse the underlying sentiment, which is peace. And if we thought talking and hugging and wishing could bring world peace, we'd be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with West Wing "President" Martin Sheen.

But our well-intended friends in the small-but-vocal anti-war demonstrations are sadly naive and misguided, and there are a number of serious problems with their position.

Chief among them is the rather bizarre fact that their protests are aimed at the very people and entities that are trying to protect human rights and civilized society from terrorists and tyrants.

While wild-eyed protesters attack a good, God-fearing man in the White House, they can't seem to see North Korea, which is busily arming terrorists to the teeth. They won't hear the truth about Saddam Hussein, even though no one in the world disputes his dual ambition to wield weapons of mass destruction and to hurt the United States and its allies. And they never seem to mention the unfulfilled peace obligations of Arab nations that oppress their own people and, as a diversion, brainwash their own children into hating Jews and the West.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Blame America first instead.

The protesters also ignore the sometimes subtle reality that some things are more important than peace: Freedom. Security from unprovoked attacks. Justice.

Moreover, the peace-at-any-cost mind-set is not only naive, it's dangerous.

"There is an increasingly vocal movement that seeks to engage America in ever-longer, wider and more costly wars, leading to thousands and perhaps millions of unnecessary deaths," writes Alex Epstein for the Ayn Rand Institute. "This movement calls itself the 'anti-war' movement."

Without military defense and pre-emption, what alternative is left to deal with aggressors and terrorists, Epstein asks, except merely ignoring their atrocities and threats or appeasing them and, therefore, encouraging them or capitulating to them?

In addition, at bottom, peaceniks project their own peace-loving values onto all others in the world - a nice gesture, certainly, but a precariously gullible and unworldly one. They seem not to realize that others in the world don't share their idealistic value systems - and would just as soon kill an American as look at one. (And if peaceniks do realize it, they lapse immediately into the self-loathing refrain of 'Why do they hate us?'- the same old song used for years to blame battered women.)

Be careful what you buy into. These protesters are willing to bet your safety, and the safety of your children, on the blind and unwarranted hope that Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and others like them will respond to hugs.

Another fatal flaw in the protesters' thinking: The foundation of their argument - that we should negotiate with our enemies always and evermore - presumes there truly is something to talk about. In other words, Sept. 11 and the West's problems with al-Qaida, Saddam et al., are merely the byproducts of a disagreement that can be worked out.

Here's the extent of the disagreement: They hate America and the West. They want us out, or dead. They want ethnic cleansing to be taken worldwide. They think any action, even murdering millions of innocent Westerners, is justified to achieve that end.

That's not disagreement. It's the seeds of war. And the peaceniks are totally ignoring the ones who are sowing those seeds.